Adaptec 1210SA

Adaptec 1210SA controller card is designed as a low-profile PCI 32/66MHz card:

As you see, the PCB carries a Silicon Image 3112 chip, which we all know very well since the times we tested Seagate Barracuda SATA V (see our Seagate Barracuda Serial ATA V Hard Disk Drive Review) and WD Raptor (see our article called WD Raptor: First ATA Hard Disk Drive with 10,000rpm Speed). Since Sil3112 chip is a PCI-to-SATA controller, the RAID function on this chip is a typical firmware RAID, i.e. is implemented on the software level.

Intel ICH5-R

The next controller on our list represents a new word in RAID-designs. It is the first time that a RAID controller is integrated into the chipset South Bridge. Intel was the one who appeared brave enough to undertake this attempt and we have to admit that this company really deserves its title of the PC-industry leader. Although it took our flagman quite a bit of time, before they finally implemented SATA-HDDs support in their chipsets. When we asked the hard disk drives manufacturers when they were going to start producing mass quantities of SerialATA HDDs, the answer was the same for all of them: when Intel introduces a chipset with SATA support. Of course, only if there were a chipset for the most widely spread processor (read: Socket478 Pentium 4), the HDD makers could hope to have the SATA HDDs sales grow up to the level that would make them happy.

It is interesting that unlike other controller we are going to review today, the SATA RAID controller implemented in ICH5-R used to support only one RAID array type until recently: RAID 0! The RAID 1 support has been introduced only recently, however, it happened exactly after I finished writing two passages about Intel and their inability to understand the users’ needs. Even though now all my above described complaints about Intel are not worth a penny, I couldn’t kill the freshly written text with my own hands :)

It is really hard to say why there is no RAID 1 support. The importance of this RAID array type support is so evident, that I really don’t think I should talk more about it. But I have to!

The growing demand for hard disk drives aroused really cut-throat competition among the manufacturers. And the growing competition resulted into lowering of HDD prices. Lower prices imply that each hard disk drive sold brings in less profit. Trying to keep the profits norm up, the manufacturers started looking for possible ways of reducing the production costs: simpler HDD construction, moving the production lines to the countries with cheap (read: less qualified) labor, reducing the warranty period. Unfortunately, the increased HDD production volumes together with the measures aimed at lowering the production costs couldn’t help telling on the HDDs quality. And in these hard days the only remedy, which can ensure that you don’t lose all your dear data one day is the use of RAID 1 arrays. Keeping in mind everything I have just said, I consider the introduction of an integrated RAID controller (no matter if it is a software solution or not) without RAID 1 support to be a clear mockery. I am not that naïve to believe that RAID 1 support is much harder to implement than RAID 0. But even if we assume that this supposition makes sense, we will have to admit that Intel’s engineers and software developers are less competent than the employees of other RAID controller-making companies. Hard to believe...

Well, all’s well that ends well. The ICH5-R South Bridge now supports RAID 1, however, we are not going to dwell on the performance of this array type in this particular article :)